The second class around took a lot less time, but was still pretty difficult! Where the DH challenge tested my timings and burst damage management, the monk challenge tested my situational awareness and self healing. Some things, like movement and ranged damage, were much easier on the monk. Some things, like healing and dealing with knockbacks, were …

After a truly embarrassing number of wipes (let’s just say it rivals the number of attempts I put into endgame bosses back when I was a competitive raider), I finally got this down. I’m not a particularly skilled player, but I am diligent. As long as you’re one of those things, you can do it too! …

When Nighthold came out and I realized I was missing several pieces that only dropped in Emerald Nightmare, I decided to compile a list of where I can get all the monk and dh tier 19 models so that I know exactly what to spend my bonus roll tokens on. Also, with the new Armor …

The tanking guide is up for normal and heroic Nighthold. As always, I’ll be updating over the next few weeks as I learn these fights, simplifying where I can, correcting what I got wrong, and filling in the “notes” tabs with talent builds and class-specific tips.

Overview 10% physical damage reduction was moved from Demon Spikes to passive, making us more sturdy when Demon Spikes isn’t active. We also got a stamina buff to help manage burst. Metamorphosis was greatly buffed, and now offers an armor increase and guaranteed Soul Fragments from Shear. Many talents got rebalanced. Expect to re-evaluate most talent tiers, especially tier …

Overview New talents in the level 75 defensive tier! (Healing Elixir, Mystic Vitality, Dampen Harm) You should swap that talent tier around much more often now. Re-balanced numbers for some underused talents. You should experiment with them. (Elusive Dance, Gift of the Mists, Niuzao, Rushing Jade Wind, Ring of Peace) Item level should be more important in deciding …

The Blogs

Social media during raids destroys my concentration. I’ll read something and get emotional in one way or another and think about that instead of keeping my head in the game. That’s fine sometimes, but during progression raids it is deeply distracting and makes me forget things like countdowns and cooldowns. So here are things I’ve …

There’s a lot of work that goes into finding what the best things to do for your character. Get the best relics, get lots of artifact power, get all your stats at the right levels, etc. Those are all well and good (though I don’t always pay attention to them), but there are other ways …

I’ve finally leveled my druid to 110. This is the first time this character has been max level since she was my main back in Cataclysm. Readers who have been around here a long time might remember her. I’ve resisted playing her for a few expansions because on TankCast we want to cover all the …

Why is it easier for me, a devoted pve raider, to get complete pvp transmog sets than complete pve transmog sets? I don’t do battlegrounds. Wherever a Mark of Honor daily pops up, I do it on my three max level characters and get a enough tokens for a whole pvp set plus a little …

I love space operas. Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy, or even the less nerd-chic things like Avatar and Jupiter Ascending, anything with wild fantastical space exploration and aliens. I especially love it when space meets with WoW, because it makes even less sense but in a good way, like designers are allowed to …

I do not make plans. My answer to the classic interview question “where do you see yourself in a few years?” is a pause followed by “huh, I never thought about that before. Wherever I end up I guess.” My most distant plan is a trip in September that my friend made me plan a …

I don’t like to complain. It’s part of my branding, “relentlessly positive, actually terrible”. I try to put a positive spin on everything in this game because that’s the way I like it. But I do have one complaint I can’t find a positive spin for.

Today I want to talk about these two talents and how I really enjoy what they do to the rotation. They are both alternate resource consumers, acting as a compliment to Soul Cleave. Soul Cleave takes pain and souls and turns that into healing and damage reduction. Fracture is half of that, taking pain and …

It seems that with Legion, or perhaps my increasingly aging brain, classes have gotten very complicated. It used to be that a proper guide only had to outline the rotation and stats and talents and be pretty solid. That’s 90% of the way to understanding a class!

Some classes are built around pooling resources. That is, their abilities consume only a portion of their max, allowing them to use multiple of the same or similar abilities in quick succession, and allowing them to save resources when they’re not needed. Poolable resources act like a buffer against unpredictability or mistakes. Brewmasters are the …